The project brought together young people with English as a Second Language from the DICE Project at the City Academy Bristol, supported by Young Bristol, with Elders mainly from Caribbean communities, to share experiences and life stories in six exchange sessions over six weeks.

The focus has been on this positive interaction of age groups and cultures.

The project is in its 2nd phase following the successful creation of a permanent sculpture and time capsule at the Trinity Centre during the 1st phase last year. Through funding from Quartet, Trinity has been able to extend the project, reuniting some of the original participants and welcoming new participants.

Both phases have been developed and delivered by Community Artist Victoria Appleton.

The sessions have involved a wide variety of activities, games and forms of interaction. For instance, each person developed their own box in the shape of as book to hold aspects of their life story that they wished to share, and then there was lots of opportunity to share what each person had written or drawn.

Participants have taken cameras home and captured pictures of things that are important to them, they then shared this with the rest of the group.

How participants have benefited

Elders: the impact of this has been having the opportunity to spend time with young people from other countries, some who had only been in this country for a couple of months. The young people were lively, kind and interested in the exchange and the Elders felt honoured to be part of their lives for the period of the sessions.

Young People: they appreciated that the elders had shown them a lot of interest; given up their time to do this and were willing to support them in their life experiences. They also felt the need to take care of the elders, particularly those who needed more support with mobility and learnt that older people are not boring, and that they don’t always order you around!

The project has been effective in that it offered opportunities for talking together and inter-generational and multi-cultural interaction. It took people out of their comfort zone and got them to open up about issues of prejudice and misunderstanding; showing that such attitudes and beliefs are not necessary – there is always another way to communicated and understand each other. It also provided a safe place for the participants to explore aspects of their own and each others life story, the process of which underlined the value and preciousness of each one of those lives.

The afternoon begins with The Bombardiers, rapidly establishing themselves on the Bristol scene with a thoughtful blend of folk, indie and blues. The Chandelier Falls are also no stranger to the local live circuit, offering 3-part blended vocal harmonies with stripped down arrangements that are simultaneously discomfiting and reassuring.

Jazz-influenced soul singer/guitarist Phil King boasts slots at Glastonbury, Ashton Court and the London Jazz Café to his credit, in addition to airplay on Radio 2 and performances alongside Alice Russell and Beth Rowley, whilst singer/songwriter Miss Cecily also pens her own jazz compositions, reaching the final of last year’s BBC Radio 2 New Talent Songwriters Competition.

Headliners RSVP are particularly looking forward to playing their globally-influenced Bhangra at Trinity: “It’s a chance to perform in our backyard again”, explains the band’s bassist and rapper Judge Singh. “We’ve played Gastonbury, WOMAD and other major gigs but it’s nice to bring our music back to the people and area where we started off”. The band still hail from Easton, and are at the forefront of the UK Bhangra scene, fusing classic Indian music with the very latest in contemporary influences from drum and bass, to techno and rock. Their music - described as ‘Dancedelic Bhangra’ - combined with the band’s renowned live presence promises to be a fitting finale to an event centred around celebrating everything that the Bristol music scene stands for.

A highly diverse line-up is completed courtesy of electro-pop from Redsetter (singer/songwriter Dominic Jones), multi-influenced skiffle/rockabilly act The Relay Rips and the heartfelt, edgy, upbeat guitar and vocals of Jhassi Elliott.

All these acts will perform against a colourful backdrop of locally-sourced craft, food and drink stalls in addition to some more unusual offerings: cyclists in particular will be keen to take advantage of the free bike maintenance that will be on hand courtesy of Life Cycle UK.

The Garden Party takes place at Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol BS2 0NW, on Sunday 10 May from 12pm until 9pm. Free entrance.

Trinity is working with Bristol Foyer - a supported housing project for people aged 16-25 - to help re-establish an IT training suite within the facility.

Foyer have welcomed the idea of a Linux training suite, allowing young people to access to multi-media software such as music production and graphics packages.

Up until recently, the Foyer's IT suite had largely utilised licensed software, but the suite was unable to be maintained and had become defunct. The new Linux training suite will offer inexpensive alternatives to licensed packages, allowing for more provision for support and training around the system.

They will be getting an upgraded network, 10 upgraded existing machines a new dual head high-spec media station, staff training and some taster courses for residents.

We hope that this will be the start of a strong partnership for the benefit of young people in our community.

For more information about Bristol Foyer please see: http://www.foyer.net/mpn/story.php?sid=188

Trinity has been championing the use of free and open source software (FOSS) for several years, to bring affordable software solutions to the communities we service.

Emma Harvey, Activities Coordinator for the Centre, attended an IT4Communities Awards event in February where she met the philanthropist Sir I.C. Bovidae of Sweeden. Emma told him all about Trinity's work and also that we were in need of making urgent repairs to our 16ft stained-glass window at the front of the building.

Without hesitation, Sir Bovidae wrote a cheque for the entire sum of the repairs, but on the condition that the stained-glass window design be of a 16ft Tux penguin - a notorious symbol of free-software.

Emma Harvey commented, "The design will be both quirky and symbolic of Trinity's free-software policies - and everyone likes penguins."

The window is due to be unveiled next April.

For more information please check the code.3ca project

Trinity has now got an official wikipedia article, providing referenced information about Trinity from its construction until today.

Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Centre

If you can provide accurate information about Trinity's illustrious past - make your contribution to history.

Hype Dance Company entered three groups into the UDO Southern Street Dance Championships in Reading and all of them got through to the international event which will be held in Blackpool on August 1-3.The youngest group of children, aged between five and 10 years old, will not attend, instead they will be staying in Bristol to perform at the Harbour Festival.

All the groups, which rehearse at the Easton Leisure Centre and Trinity Arts Centre, will be performing in the Galleries in Broadmead on July 19 and at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta from August 7-10.

The dancers have had success before - the senior group, aged between 16 and 25, has won at London's Notting Hill Carnival for two years running.

The nomination is for Best IT Volunteering Project – Innovation for our Linux distribution Trubuntu.

The awards ceremony will be held at BCS London HQ, Covent Garden on 19 Feburary.

2008 has been a year of rapid growth and development.

In one year we have played host to 49 live music events and facilitated 134 community sessions, from retro markets and jobs fairs to parties and forums. We have also run over 200 workshops and training sessions, either as part of our training program or through our various projects such as the Bristol Sound Project, our First Light Movies project and Project Respect.

We have seen our staff numbers grow from one full time member to three key posts. Activities Coordinator Emma Harvey continues excel in her role to achieving success for the Centre and the communities we service. Project Coordinator, Nick Young, has ensured successful delivery of our Heritage Lottery Young Roots grant, creating a project that was both engaging and ground-breaking. The newest member of our team, Training Coordinator Katie Pearce, will see us developing and improving upon the success of our 2008 training program, offering a wider range of courses to a broader social demographic.

We have several new directors, bringing with them a wealth of knowledge and experience. We have also seen an encouraging increase in voluntary participation at Trinity, increasing the efficiency and capacity of our admin team.

The most notable development this year has been Bristol City Council awarding us the status of Key Arts Provider within the city. This recognition of our achievements within arts and the community shows how far we have come since re-opening the Centre four years ago.

Another major success of the year has been the development of our IT facilities. We have made great progress in providing Free and Open Source Software alternatives to those using our facilities - improving the likelihood of continued use of these accessible tools outside of the Centre. We now have a fully networked IT suite running from our own Linux distribution, which will be of great benefit to the communities we service. We have also continued to develop and improve our website and have secured a second grant through the Quartet Foundation to add some more interactive features.

Finally 2008 has been a year of developing the building. We have a completed Recording Studio, part funded by our Bristol Objective 2 grant, and have secured an English Heritage grant to carry out a full conditions survey of the building in 2009. We have also renovated and improved our hall spaces, stage and the exterior of the building - much of which has been achieved on a minimal budget with huge voluntary participation.

A massive thank you to all those who have put their blood, sweat and tears into making all these great things happen.

Check out our Annual Report for more information.

In December 2008 Trinity collaborated with The Wonder Club to produce a spectacular site specific promenade theatre performance At Tether's End. The show was inspired by the true story of a local young man William Pullin who tragically stabbed a police man, PC Richard Hill, to death. The show was part of the Bristol Sound Project and featured artwork, set and performances from a large number of young people working alongside professional artists from Bristol.

The show was a resounding success with tickets sold out every one of the six nights the show ran for. It also received a 4/5 star review from Steve Wright in Venue magazine as well as an excellent write up in The British Theatre Guide. Read the reviews here.

After a brief break Trinity are pleased to offer a new theatre training course run by the director of At Tether's End. For more information please visit our home page.

Click here to read more about our current projects.

Trinity and The Wonder Club are producing a large site-specific performance, based at the Trinity Centre.

A fantastic team of professional artists and performers will be involved. The show will run for 6 nights the week before Christmas. 

If you are interested in getting involved as a performer, volunteer or supporting the artists and technical crew then please get in contact.

 “This is an amazing opportunity for participants to work on a professional production and perform to a paying audience”. Nick Young, Project Coordinator

Rehearsals will be at Trinity from every Thursday 5-7pm (under 18s), 7pm-10pm (18+)

Please contact nick@3ca.org.uk  for more information.

Bristol Wireless's Woodsy reviews the customised Trubuntu desktop provided to all students

• NEWS! Casting for the performance in December will be held in September. It promises to be Bristols show of the year. If you are interested in theatre, dance, singing or working behind the scenes and are aged 16+ then contact nick on the email below for more info.

• The Trinity Young Council of Management is up and running. If you are interested in putting on your own event / class / workshop or are just interested in having a say in what happens at Trinity in the future then come down to one of our weekly meetings a 4.30pm in the centre.

• The project is also currently looking at beginnings of the Trinity Centre and how the venue became the birthplace of 'the Bristol Sound' music scene. We are in the stages of finishing the exhibition which will tour later in the year.

• If you have a story or would like to get involved, please contact nick@3ca.org.uk